BSV Update: April 2020

08Apr2020

Notes from the Founding President: Jimmy Nguyen

Greetings to the Bitcoin Association community!

First of all, I’d like to note that we’re changing the schedule for our BSV Update and will now deliver a more substantial newsletter on a monthly basis, including a note from myself on the state of the BSV ecosystem.

As I write the first of these Notes from the President, I would be remiss to not first address something more important than Bitcoin: the world’s health and wellbeing. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed all of our lives, and now, we are only just beginning to adjust to a world which looks markedly different today from how it did just a short few months and even weeks ago.

It’s times like these when people and communities must come together and that includes our Bitcoin SV community. Bitcoin Association wants to provide support where we can, while also continuing our work to advance the global adoption of Bitcoin SV.

We always love to hear from our members, but given the fast-moving times in which we’re all currently living through, now more than ever, we want your thoughts. As the Association continues our work to establish Bitcoin SV as the blockchain for business, please tell us what you think about the work we’re doing and how we can all pitch in as a global community during this period – both to support each other and Bitcoin SV.

Not surprisingly, we have made the decision to suspend a number of our Association’s planned events until further notice in light of the COVID-19 situation. This includes our announced BSV DevCon for San Francisco in June. We are in the process of working to launch online programs to provide developers and business executives resources to learn more about Bitcoin SV. Stay tuned for more information from the Association as the situation develops.

With all of that said, even in the midst of a world crisis, there’s plenty of positive stories within the Bitcoin SV ecosystem that provide some semblance of inspiration and balance. This month in the BSV Update, we look at:

– Congratulations to Jerry Chan as he leaves Bitcoin Association to take over as CEO at TAAL

– Major moves by Kronoverse in the eSports industry

– Exciting developments by UNISOT in the name of environmental sustainability

From all of us here at Bitcoin Association, we send you, your families, and our community, our best wishes and will look forward to connecting with you (in whatever form that may take) all again soon.

Take care and be safe,

Jimmy Nguyen

Founding President
Bitcoin Association

News and Updates

Update on Bitcoin Association Events Program and DevCon San Francisco

Events represent a substantial portion of Bitcoin Association’s activities to educate developers, business executives, investors and more, about the power of Bitcoin SV. As other organizations and businesses around the world have also done, we too need to put a pause on the Association’s in-person events – including our planned Bitcoin SV DevCon, previously announced for June in San Francisco.

This means that the DevCon in San Francisco will be postponed to a future date, to be determined once we feel as an Association that it is again safe to host a major conference. The Association is closely monitoring the ongoing situation and is actively involved in communications with relevant government bodies regarding their advice on organizing events. We will remain in contact with all of those who pre-registered for the DevCon in San Francisco, as well as our Association members, to provide notice of developments as the situation progresses.

Meanwhile, we are working to launch a selection of online programs to provide developers and business executives resources to learn more about Bitcoin SV in the interim. Please stay tuned for more information and do feel free to reach out to the Bitcoin Association team if you have any personal queries.

Bitcoin SV Wiki Goes Live

Following a significant effort from staff at both Bitcoin Association and nChain, we were pleased to announce (at CoinGeek London in February) the new Bitcoin SV Wiki. For too long, misinformation has been spread about Bitcoin. The Bitcoin SV Wiki will be the comprehensive resource that re-educates developers and the world about Bitcoin. It will also chronicle Bitcoin’s history, and summarize the technologies, services and functions which contribute to its ecosystem.

The Association is delighted to see this project live for the world to access. Please visit the Bitcoin SV Wiki and learn about Bitcoin – the way it was truly meant to be.

BitcoinSV.com Launches!

Bitcoin Association is also excited to announce the official launch of BitcoinSV.com. The new website will serve as the official “master portal” for everything Bitcoin SV, with up-to-date content, information and resource links suitable for everyone from developers, enterprise executives, transaction processors, investors and every-day users. We soft-launched BitcoinSV.com for the first anniversary of Bitcoin Independence Day last November, and have continued to gradually add content to the site.

Many people have viewed the BitcoinSV.io website as the “official” site for Bitcoin SV information. The .io site was launched in 2018 to provide information about the Bitcoin SV Node implementation and is intended for a technical audience. It was never intended long-term to be the general information site for Bitcoin SV; that function will now be served by BitcoinSV.com – which has content suitable for a more mainstream audience.

BitcoinSV.io will continue to operate, in order to provide technical information about the Bitcoin SV Node software and other infrastructure projects from the Bitcoin SV Node team.

We encourage you to visit BitcoinSV.com and distribute the link widely for the world to see.

Important changes to nomenclature

It’s time to change the nomenclature for certain terms used within the Bitcoin and blockchain industry.

“Transaction Processors” rather than “Miners”

The term “miners” appears to have been adopted based on the analogy that the node winning each Bitcoin block receives fresh coins from Bitcoin’s originally-issued finite supply of 21 million supply – as if the node was mining the coins out of the earth. The number of fresh coins received for each block is a static subsidy to bootstrap the network at the very beginning but intentionally decreases over time: it began with 50 coins, and then halves approximately every four years to 25 coins, to 12.5 coins and soon to 6.25 coins and so forth.

Therefore, the analogy to traditional mining becomes increasingly less relevant over time. With the next impending halving across the three main competing Bitcoin chains, more transaction fees are going to be required to make up the shortfall in revenue earned by “miners” from the static subsidy portion of the block reward. This is critical to ensure profitability of “mining” and sustain the network. To add to that, with every new block, fewer fresh coins will be distributed into circulation from the finite supply of 21 million Bitcoin, representing a shift in the role that “miners” play within the network. In short, “miners” will be bringing fewer fresh coins into supply, with their activity needing to focus further on earning transaction fees from coins already in circulation. To reflect this, we believe it is time to replace the term “miner” in favour of “transaction processor” – a term which more accurately embodies the role these nodes play within the Bitcoin economy at present, and one that will most certainly become more important in the years to come as the static subsidy portion of the block reward continues to halve.

“Digital Currency” or “Digital Asset” rather than “Cryptocurrency”

In another change, Bitcoin Association will now use the terms “digital currency” or “digital asset” to refer to Bitcoin (SV of course), rather than “cryptocurrency.”

There are two reasons for this change. First, as Dr. Craig Wright has repeatedly explained, Bitcoin’s security is economic, rather than dependent on cryptography. Therefore, “cryptocurrency” was never an accurate term to describe Bitcoin in the first place.

Second, the term “cryptocurrency” has developed negative connotations due to Bitcoin and other digital currencies being misused or distorted for many years. We believe Bitcoin has tremendous lawful utility and should not be associated with such negative connotations. As the Association continues to advance business with Bitcoin SV, we believe “digital currency” or “digital asset” is a more enterprise and government-friendly term, as well as being a more accurate representation of Bitcoin’s utility.

Moving forward, Bitcoin Association is committed to utilising these new naming standards and actively encourages both our membership and the wider Bitcoin community to do the same.

Bitcoin Association congratulates Jerry Chan

Bitcoin Association would like to extend its congratulation to Jerry Chan, who has moved on from his role as Bitcoin Association’s Regional Manager for Japan and South Korea to take up the position of President and CEO at TAAL Distributed Information Technologies.

TAAL is a Canadian-based, publicly-listed business focused on transaction processing – with a strong focus on Bitcoin SV, its associated technologies, and the development of enterprise-level blockchain applications.

Jerry was one of the first Regional Managers for the Association, and has been a long-time advocate for the Satoshi Vision of Bitcoin. We especially appreciated his hosting of the BSV: Bitcoin for Business – Tokyo event last year with Dr. Craig Wright.

We wish Jerry the best and look forward to future opportunities for collaboration with him in his new role at TAAL.

Bitcoin Association goes to Slovenia

On March 3, Bitcoin Association was proud to partner with nChain and CREA – the Slovenian-based development firm who work alongside nChain on the Bitcoin SV Node team – on the first BSV conference in Ljubljana. This will now go down as the last in-person Bitcoin Association event for the foreseeable future, until the COVID-19 situation improves.

More than 250 executives and developers from the worlds of business and Bitcoin came together for Bitcoin SV: The Blockchain for Business in Slovenia, a day-long program that paired learnings centred on the potential of Bitcoin, together with a series of real-world applications that illustrate why BSV is the ideal blockchain for enterprise.

Bitcoin Association President Jimmy Nguyen hosted the day (and even filled in last minute to present topics for some speakers who could not make it). But the event’s focus was on the successful relationship between nChain and CREA, and how they can help businesses in the region build on Bitcoin SV. The conference therefore had senior members from nChain, representatives of CREA, and as well as several Bitcoin Association business members take the spotlight on stage – the highlight of which was a powerful speech from Dr. Craig Wright on his vision for a future built on-chain.

“I want to see [Bitcoin SV] get to the point where we have millions of transactions every second,” exclaimed Wright, riling up the over-capacity theatre.

Right now, Google does about 56,000 searches per second. We want to get [Bitcoin SV] doing millions of transactions every second, which means that we’ll be able to capture organisations of the future like Google and like Facebook, but [with] no more ad revenue.”

Quote of the Month: Jan Smit – Two Hop Ventures

Bitcoin Association recently sat down for an extended interview with our Ambassador for the Netherlands, Jan Smit. Discussing his role as General Partner at Two Hop Ventures, a venture capital firm focused purely on investments in the BSV-space, Jan said that the Bitcoin ecosystem was at the point of a pivotal moment:

“This is a super exciting time! There are great opportunities and I’m one hundred percent certain that most of these companies [building on Bitcoin SV] will grow on to have valuations which are far, far beyond what they have today. To be able to buy in at this level, it really is an opportunity in history I would say.”

Look out for more from Jan in his feature-length profile set to publish on the Bitcoin Association website later in April.

Kronoverse makes major strides following success at CoinGeek London

Bitcoin SV gaming platform Kronoverse made a pair of pivotal announcements in March, as they continue to establish themselves as an innovator in the gaming and blockchain spaces.

Kronoverse announced that they had formed a partnership with ESL, the world’s largest esports company, in order to further both the development and scale of Kronoverse’s gaming platform, as well as their upcoming CryptoFight’s title which premiered at CoinGeek London.

“ESL knows what it takes to succeed in the ever-growing esports industry as the oldest and most successful esports company in the world,” says Adam Kling, CEO and founder of Kronoverse.

“We’re confident our partnership with ESL will enable us to fully develop the Kronoverse platform. This includes everything from attracting more indie game developers to solving problems in competitive gaming such as cheating.”

In what was a busy month for the gaming upstart, Kronoverse also announced that they had been elected to membership of ESIC, the Esports Integrity commission. Kronoverse will work together with ESIC to explore ways in which Bitcoin SV and blockchain-technology can work to add surety and reliability to eSports – an industry not just booming in popularity, but one with increasingly prominent financial rewards at stake.

UNISOT continues to build on Bitcoin SV

At CoinGeek London in February and afterward through a press release, supply-chain management company UNISOT, a Norwegian business which develops applications exclusively on Bitcoin SV, made a major announcement about the release of their new product, SeafoodChain. The platform combines traceability, product provenance and proof of quality for the seafood and aquaculture industries – all of which is built and recorded on chain.

In addition, the company launched its namesake UNISOT enterprise blockchain platform. Both platforms are built on Bitcoin SV, with CEO Stephan Nilsson citing the blockchain’s scalability, stability and low fees as key factors behind the decision.

With sustainability and traceability as core ethos, expect to see further announcements from UNISOT, as they find new ways to harness the growing global demand for eco-conscious consumer goods and the technologies required to facilitate their surety.